By WYNDAM MAKOWSKY
MANAGING EDITOR
Former State Controller Steve Westly‘78 MBA ‘83 spoke to students Wednesdayabout the importance of clean technologiesand the growth of that industry,and calledfor a immediate worldwide push for alter-native energy sources.The talk,given through theEntrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL)seminar series,focused on innovations inenergy research that could have a substan-tial ripple effect.According to Westly,ascompanies and countries focus more onefficient,cost-effective green technology,they will in turn help boost the global econ-omy and preserve the Earth.The situation,both economically andenvironmentally,is dire,Westly said,but inthat urgency comes room for innovation.“Historically,every five to 10 years,entrepreneurs come up with some newbreakthrough,”Westly noted,indicatingthat the next big IPOs are likely to be cleantechnology companies.“The clean techindustry is likely to provide the jumpstartthat will help America and the rest of theworld get out of this recession.”At the same time,they’ll assist in creat-ing a more environmentally conscious con-sumer society.In particular,Westly men-tioned the car manufacturer Tesla,a leaderin electric vehicles.Since Tesla debuted itsnewest model just weeks ago,Westlyclaimed that the company,whose board hesits on,has received more orders for theircars than General Motors has for its Saturnbrand over the same time period.“You are going to see a move towardelectric cars faster than anything you candream,”he added.But beyond the automobile industry,Westly sees the need for reform across theboard.Using his background as both a venturecapitalist and politician,the former guber-natorial candidate called for global emis-sions standards,pointing to legislationpassed in Western Europe and Japan onbuilding standards and cap-and-trade pro-grams as an example for the United Statesand China.Westly also expressed frustra-tion,however,with the political processand a perceived lack of motivation tobecome more environmentally conscious.“Elected officials do us a huge disserv-ice,”he said.“If you’re a government regu-lator,there are no incentives for doing well.If you’re a private sector entrepreneur,you’re wondering what’s wrong with thesegovernment officials.”That said,his insistence on higher stan-dards was unwavering.“We need a worldwide mandate to have20 percent alternative energy as soon ashumanely possible,”the former ASSUPresident said.Westly successfully led stu-dent protests against the University’s
By CASSANDRA FELICIANO
STAFF WRITER
Planning for study abroad trips,searching for researchgrants and finalizing four-year plans have been made easierby the University’s new Global Gateway Web site—the lat-est addition to the Stanford network,the site goes live todayat global.stanford.edu.As part of the University’s international initiative instat-ed in 2005,the development process for the Global Gatewaysite began last spring.Members of the Board of Trustees andthe Office of the President approached the Freeman SpogliInstitute (FSI) of International Studies with the idea for theWeb site,as part of the University’s larger globalizationeffort.“We’re transitioning from Stanford being a premiernational university to being a premier international univer-sity,”said FSI Assistant Director of Programs CatharineKristian.“We want to make sure that people—both insideand outside the Stanford community—know about that,whether they are faculty,students,collaborators in other uni-versities around the world or policy makers.”The Web site features three main sections:a coursesearch engine,research and interdisciplinary faculty listings.These segments,all of which are organized by region,aregeared towards easing student search efforts and interdisci-plinary faculty collaborations.“The Stanford Global Gateway is a portal,”Kristian said.“Our goal is to get people to their end destination—to beable to find quickly and easily the information that they arelooking for.”“Every time a faculty member [wants] to teach a coursein the field,in a foreign country,he has to reinvent the wheelall over again,”Kristian continued.“What we’re doing inter-nally is to start building all those tools so that people don’thave to do that.”For students,the Web site will help with tasks like sched-uling next quarter’s classes.They can now find specific coun-try-related courses with a host of foci,and from disciplinesthat may not appear to have obvious connections with theirsubject of interest.Similarly,the Web site combines all theresearch funding opportunities supported by campus
A cleaner tomorrow
Former State Controller Steve Westly ‘78 MBA ‘83 stresses importance ofgreen tech.
ALEXYU/The Stanford Daily
In a talk hosted by the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders(ETL) seminar, former State Controller Steve Westly ‘78 MBA ‘83 called for increased development of alternative energy sources.
The Stanford Daily
An Independent Publication
www.stanforddaily.com
THURSDAY Volume 235
May 21, 2009Issue 63
ONLINE @
WWW.STANFORDDAILY.COMTWITTER: STANFORD_DAILY
Today
Mostly Sunny
7341
Tomorrow
Sunny
6647
Index
Features/2 • Opinions/4 • Sports/6 •Classifieds/7
Recycle Me
FEATURES/2
BATHROOM CULTURE
A look at how students spend this private, or not-so-private, time
SPORTS/4
BLASTING AWAY
Senior Brent Milleville steps up his batting tooffer the Card help down the stretch
By DANIEL BOHM
STAFF WRITER
Stanford softball will play host to afamiliar foe in conference rivalArizona this weekend in the PaloAlto Super Regional.On the line is atrip to the Women’s College WorldSeries in Oklahoma City.The two teams will play a best-of-three series,with the first game start-ing tonight at 6:30 p.m.,and the nextgame (or games) slated to be playedFriday evening.Stanford is looking to continue itsquest for its first national champi-onship and first trip to OklahomaCity since 2004.Arizona,on the otherhand,has won eight national champi-onships,including back-to-back titlesin 2006 and 2007.The match-up between the eighth-seeded Cardinal and the ninth-seededWildcats is about as even as could beexpected.The Pacific-10 Conference foes areextremely familiar with one another.They met three times this season,withStanford taking the two games in PaloAlto and Arizona winning in Tucson.Despite going 2-1 in the season series,the Cardinal was outscored by theWildcats 16-10.“It’s definitely an interestingmatch-up,”said Cardinal head coachJohn Rittman.“Both teams are veryfamiliar with one another and every-body is just ready to play.”Cardinal left-fielder Alissa Haberfeels the team can learn a lot from itsprevious games against the Wildcats.“We’ve learned that it is a fightevery time we play them,”she said.“We know we can’t take them lightlyin any part of the game.”Stanford is coming off of an unde-feated performance in the StanfordRegional last weekend.The Cardinalbreezed through,easily winninggames against Portland State,Nevadaand Cal Poly.Arizona had a more circuitousroute to Palo Alto.Despite being theninth seed,the Wildcats were sent toKentucky for the Louisville Regional.Many in Arizona saw this as a sign of disrespect,and the Wildcats sent astrong message in response.In three games,the Arizonaoffense,which leads the nation,scored31 runs including 18 in a win over hostLouisville.Rittman recognizes the potentialof his opponent.“They are a very talented team,”he said.“They have power up anddown the lineup.They have speed upand down the lineup,and they havethree pitchers that have reallyimproved.”The Wildcats are undoubtedlyunhappy about having to make thetrip northwest to Palo Alto as well—despite losing two of three to theCardinal this season,Arizona finishedin third place in the Pac-10,one spotahead of Stanford.
VIVIAN WONG/The Stanford Daily
Although Stanford has won two of its three encounters with the Wildcats thisseason, the Cardinal is wary of Arizona’s offensive prowess. Senior pitcher Missy Penna was clobbered with 12 runs in 13 hits in her last ‘Cat encounter,but this time, a trip to the Women’s College World Series is on the line.
SOFTBALL
5/17vs. Cal Poly
W
4-0
UP NEXTARIZONA
(44-14, 13-7 Pac-10)
2/24Smith Family Stadium6:30 P.M.
COVERAGE:
TVESPN2
GAME NOTES:
The Cardinal takes on Arizonafor the fourth time this season with a trip tothe Women’s College World Series on theline. Senior pitcher Missy Penna will see if shehas what it takes to contain a conference-dominating Wildcat offense to improveStanford to 3-1 against Arizona this year.
Please see
SOFTBALL
,page 6
Softball meets ‘Zonain Super Regional
RESEARCH
Peer pressure may lead to lower income
By CAROLINE STOKES
Most Stanford students have taken at least one class just because a friend was taking it or had recommend-ed it.But an academic paper co-authored by StanfordEconomics Prof.Giacomo De Giorgi suggests thatthese peer-influenced decisions may be diminishingstudents’ future earnings.De Giorgi and two professors from BocconiUniversity in Italy recently conducted a controlledstudy on first-year business students at the Italian uni-versity,where students are randomly assigned to sec-tions for their nine required first-year classes.After thefirst three semesters,students choose either a businessor an economics major.Based on their analysis of theseinitial semesters,the researchers found that being fre-quently exposed to another student who chose eco-nomics (‘frequently’ defined as having at least four outof the nine sections with the student),increased thelikelihood that the student would also study econom-ics,which is the less popular major by 7.4 percent.In their paper,“Be as Careful of the Company YouKeep as of the Books You Read:Peer Effects inEducation and on the Labor Market,”the professorsargue that the influence that peers’ academic decisionshave on a student’s choice of major can prevent thatstudent from choosing the major which best capitalizeson her or his individual skill set.The researchers claimthe costs of this decision may be a lower GPA and,as aresult,a reduced salary in the future.“Results show that,indeed,one is more likely tochoose a major when many of his/her peers make thesame choice,”the paper explains.“We estimate that,when it diverts students from majors in which theyseem to have a relative ability advantage,this effectleads to lower average grades and graduation mark,apenalty that in the labor market could cost up to 871euros (1,117 USD) a year.”Many say Stanford students are just as heavily influ-enced by their peers when making academic decisions.
ADMINISTRATION
Univ.launchesGlobal Gateway Web site
Please see
GLOBAL
,page 3Please see
MAJORS
,page 3Please see
CLEANTECH
,page 5
AVERY WEIDMAN/The Stanford Daily
By CASSANDRA FELICIANO
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
E
veryone does it.Some of usare silent and secretive.Someof us like to bring a snack or agood magazine,play a gameor burn incense.And some of us are just looking to make new friends.Stanford is a diverse place,but one thingunites us all—the bathroom.
TOILET TALK
“It’s a captive audience,and I’ve gotnothing else to do,”explained AldenTimme ‘11,who professed great enthusi-asm for making conversation on the john.“It’s a great time,because otherwise,you’re doing work or something and youhave to concentrate.But usually,whenyou’re showering or dumping,there’s noconcentration that goes into cleaning your-self—you can have a good conversation.”For Timme,comfort room chats were just another branch of dorm bonding.Alex Scherer ‘11,who lived in Alondrawith Timme last year,is not so comfortablewith the idea of toilet talk.“I don’t like to talk while I’m naked,”he said.“If you think about it,while you’renaked,you could be looking at your junk;and if you’re looking at your junk,I don’twant someone looking at their junk whilethey’re thinking of me or vice versa.I don’twant my face to be associated with junk.”Scherer has,in fact,been known to curbany attempts at restroom conversation,responding to a question or commentingpolitely,albeit curtly,before choosing todiscontinue the bathroom banter.“When I tried to talk with Alex lastyear,he like almost yelled at me,”Timmenoted.“[Alex] thought that bathroom timewas a man’s time of solace to meditate onhis thoughts.”Many Stanford students are not asrightwing as Scherer,and fewer are leftistswhen it comes to toilet tete-a-tetes.In fact,they usually hover somewhere around thecenter of the spectrum,preferring to limitdiscussions to the showers and sinks.“That’s usually where we’d have ourtime to catch up,”said Michelle Dadourian‘11.“Generally when you’re in the stallsthough,I would say that’s a no-go.”Eric Molina ‘11 agreed.“When you’re on the toilet,it’s likebeing on the throne,”he said.“You don’twant to be bothered.You want to com-mand in peace.”Some even go so far as to schedule theirshowers together in order to avail of thesesink-side chats.Naturally,however,as these codes of etiquette are,for the most part,unwritten,they rarely help in regulating the use andmisuse of the dormitory bathrooms.Wherethe Emily Post protocol will not suffice orsimply does not apply,Stanford studentshave resorted to intriguing solutions in‘loo’ of
etiquette
.
YOUR BATHROOM IS A TEMPLE
Over the years,the water closet has pro-gressed into a make-shift hiding place—apeaceful sanctuary that,for many,is supe-rior to the bedroom as a common go-to forsome quality “me”time.The white,or oth-erwise neutral-colored,tiles and the prom-ise of privacy have long been conducive topuzzling out the toughest questions on aproblem set,formulating a thesis or maybe just doing a little late-night soul searching.The men’s bathroom on the third floorof Rinconada (Rinc) in Wilbur has anunusual architecture that hints at the regal.Light pours in from a circular window,bathing trapezoid-shaped urinals in glow-ing white light.There are five or six gath-ered together,as if the niche doubles as aforum for the Roman Assembly.Studentsmay as well wear togas instead of towels asthey make their way to the showers in aseparate wing.It’s difficult to determine whether ornot it was the bathroom’s natural characteror sheer audacity that propelled CougarOswald ‘12 to pimp his potty.“A man’s toilet is his oasis,”Oswaldwrote in an email to The Daily.While this Rinc bathroom is not exactlyparadise,Oswald did try to come close.Posters,smokeless incense and a literarymenu including Maxim were employed tofurnish this “home away from home.”Oswald also provided a poo diary for theRinc boys,perhaps to facilitate their soulsearching,though they have yet to reachnirvana.Oswald,unfortunately,declined TheDaily’s offer for an in-bathroom interview,in an effort to preserve the sanctity of hisprivate space.“Some men,like those in the third floorat Rinc,are lucky enough to have toiletaccessories,”Oswald wrote.“Whether it isa solo poo—a great opportunity to getsome time to yourself—or a social poo—some of my best conversations are thosewith fellow poopers in adjacent stalls—my time on the john is often one of myfavorite parts of the day.Above all,howev-er,men go to the toilet to escape the stressand social etiquette forced upon us by thefemale sex.We can always rest assured thatour poos are private endeavors of whichthe details are known exclusively by ourfellow males.”
HIDE AND GO POOP
While most students do not have thelavatory luxuries of the third floor at Rinc,many still think of creative ways to passtime in the loo.In Alondra last spring,asmall band of boys on the third flooranswered nature’s call—of creativity.Scherer introduced the game Hide andGo Poop—known as Poop and Go Seekoutside of Europe—to fellow AlondransTimme,Zach Koehn ‘11 and MarkFrykman ‘11.While Scherer is a firmbeliever in private pooping,he proposedthat the game test one’s ability to “secrete”their time on the crapper.“It’s fun to do something that’s silly andwacky and a little revolting to some peo-ple,”he said,smiling wryly.“You know,itgets a rise out of people.It’s a little taboo.”Hide and Go Poop contenders gainedpoints by either hitting their opponentswith a wet paper towel while they were onthe john or pooping without being hit.Fivepoints were awarded for each successfulpoop and three points for a “catch.”The game grew to include a majority of the boys living on the third floor.They allnoted that timing was key in getting ahead.“Certain times of the day are notorious-ly hot for dumping,”Frykman said.“A lit-tle bit after lunch was a good one.”Some followed the “early and often”plan or avoided contact altogether,choos-ing pockets of time when no one wasaround,while others chose to go with theflow.One Alondran even opted to squaton top of the toilet in his eagerness to gaina few points.Most tactics,however,wereineffective due to the rather small pool of players and limited facilities.“We didn’t have a lot of people playing,so it was always pretty obvious that some-one was pooping,”Frykman said.Hide and Go Poop,in spite of the hype,was relatively short-lived,lasting only twoto three weeks.The Alondrans lost interestfor a variety of reasons.Some,like Timme,were frustrated,unable to climb the pointladder.“I was losing pretty badly,and I tried tosabotage the scoring system,”he said.“ButI can’t aim very well over the stall.”In the end,however,the Alondranswere tired of the pressure.“It was no longer exciting,”Schererlamented.“I just wanted to take a poop inpeace again.”
THE LOOKING GLASS
Innovation is unparalleled in manyways at Stanford—avoiding the awk-wardness of a public bathroom included.But,sometimes,we just have to embrace it.For Stanford students living in Phi Sig,the issue extends beyond having privacyinvaded by a common bathroom.Residents must contend with glass showerdoors,which definitely leave little to theimagination.“You can’t see through them complete-ly,but it’s pretty invasive at the same time,”said Ron Pomper ‘11.“Someone also tooka picture of me while I was in the bath-room,and that was really awkwardbecause you could tell it was me.”A few students opted to strategicallydrape their towels over the shower doorsor shower in the dark.It became increas-ingly more uncomfortable,for the boysespecially,when the cleaning schedule con-flicted with prime morning shower time.However,many residents were not asaffected and became accustomed moreeasily and quickly to the shower doors.“Since they’re somewhat misty,youcan’t see people or whatever;you can justsee shapes and colors,”Dadourian said.“Iwant to say in the beginning of the year itwas definitely more awkward,but noweveryone’s pretty used to the idea.”The inherently chaotic lifestyle of thequarter system requires a bit of time toflush away pandemonium from a Stanfordstudent’s head,and toilet talk,games or asimple conversation can help to alleviatesome of the stress.Stanford houses someof the most brilliant people in the world,but hey,we all still have to poop.
Contact Cassandra Feliciano at ccfelici@ stanford.edu.
2
N
Thursday,May 21,2009
The Stanford Daily
F
EATURES
ARNAV MOUDGIL/The Stanford Daily
Translucent bathroom stalls in Phi Sig make any sojourn to the shower an illuminating experience. Residents have taken precautions by strategically draping towels over the shower doors toprovide a semblance of privacy.
ALEXYU/The Stanford Daily
For the third-floor Rinconada resi-dents, incense inthe bathroommakes any trip tothe loo a calmingand relaxing one.
AWK-upied
BATHROOMS ATSTANFORD AREFOR SHITSAND GIGGLES
The Stanford Daily
Thursday,May 21,2009
N
3
SCIENCE &TECH
Researchers visualizecomplex data
By ERIC MESSINGER
DESK EDITOR
Representing complex data incomprehensible visuals is a challengefor researchers,both at Stanford andin the private sector,and is gainingpopularity as a subject of academicstudy on campus.Faculty and students are workingon new ways to display informationin useful ways through innovativevisualizations.Computer ScienceProfessor Jeffrey Heer is involved inthese efforts,and said spatial repre-sentation provides a valuable way of approaching complex issues.“For the very large and difficultquestions,often times by mappingdata you’re able to see patterns youwouldn’t get by running through thenumbers,”Heer said.Heer added that the field is seeingan uptick in interest,particularlyfrom students looking to apply les-sons across disciplinary boundariesto their work in technical fields.“They’re very much interestedand attuned to using insights frompsychology to motivate the kind of systems that we’re building,”he said.“It’s funny,but no one thought com-puter programming would be thesexy job of the ‘90s,and no onethought data analysis would be thesexy job of the next ten years.”Heer said the tools of visualiza-tion could be applied across anynumber of data sets,ranging fromrepresentations of the internal distri-bution of emails within EnronCorporation to long-term immigra-tion trends.The computer science professoradded that while the digital age hasbrought a great increase in the avail-ability of valuable data,interactingwith that information in a meaningfulway has proven problematic.He saidresearch in the area primarily lookedtoward the ways in which users relatewith displays.“One area of interest has been inpatterns of human interaction,”Heerpointed out.“What we try to do isunderstand,how do people use visu-alizations to find insight? We use datasets as a kind of petri dish.”Heer said the goal was ultimatelyto devise general principles for repre-senting any kind of data set.“The hope is,as we build ourunderstanding and our set of tools,itwill be applicable beyond just thedata itself,”Heer said.Heer and his students were onhand Monday at an event called“Places and Spaces,”which debuted acollection of visualizations from non-Stanford researchers focused uponrepresenting scientific data.Theexhibit will be housed at WallenbergHall (Building 160) until the end of 2009.Heer said the exhibition drewupon the “rich tradition of cartogra-phy.”Jason Chuang,a fourth-year Ph.D.student in computer science and aformer Daily photo editor,shared aproject that mapped the disciplinaryrelationships between doctoral dis-sertations across a number of depart-ments.His research drew upon thetext from the abstracts of 9,068 dis-sertations from the past sixteen years.Chuang’s project was a dynamicdisplay that allowed users to cus-tomize their focus.Affinities betweenthe content of different dissertationswere typically represented by prox-imity,allowing observers to quicklydiscern complicated relationshipsbetween disciplines or even individ-ual papers.Chuang said the work demon-strated the possibilities inherent inexamining the content of vast datasets.“It gets at the general problem of a large collection of documents,”hesaid.He added that the tool could beapplicable for researchers searchingfor work in related,or unexpectedlyrelated,fields.When English major LukeHenesy ‘10 realized after his sopho-more year that he was not lookingforward to reading Shakespeare andstudying literature during his lasttwo years at Stanford,he found him-self searching for a new major.WhenHenesy’s roommate in Madrid lastfall happened to be an architecturaldesign major who introducedHenesy to this relatively new depart-ment at Stanford,he started map-ping out how he could start andcomplete the major in two years.Soon,he had a new major.“I was basically open to anythingin Spain,”he continued.“If myroommate had been a studio artmajor,I probably would’ve donethat if they’d spoke highly about it...Ifeel like with a lot of people,majordecisions end up being pretty cir-cumstantial.Like based on the peo-ple that you know,what you’reexposed to.”Grace Laidlaw ‘10 agreed thatpeers can easily influence students’academic choices.“I definitely decided to do Bioover HumBio because my boyfriendat the time,who I think is one of thesmartest people I know,told me thatHumBio was fuzzy and a lot less use-ful than Bio,”she said.Laura Selznick,special assistantfor diversity outreach to the ViceProvost for UndergraduateEducation,has advised Stanford stu-dents since 1986,and is not surprisedby these instances of peer-influencedmajor decisions.“Stanford students are oftenmore comfortable talking to theirpeers than the professors,”sheexplained.Ashley Rhoades ‘12 agreed thatpeers are more easily accessible anduseful sources of information onclasses than advisors.“[My pre-assigned freshman yearadvisor] didn’t really give me anysense of direction,”Rhoades said.“[She] just kind of just told me to dowhat I wanted to do,which was kindof overwhelming as a freshman.Butmy peer mentor was actually a lotmore helpful than my actual advisor.He was really good about telling mewhich classes I should be taking thatare good,which professors and stuff.”Professor Michele Pellizzari of Bocconi University,one of the threeeconomists who co-authored thepaper,said improving disseminationof information about each depart-ment could help students make bet-ter decisions.“Universities should make surethat students are well informed aboutwhat exactly each subject is about,”Pellizzari wrote in an email to TheDaily.Although some Stanford studentsadmit to selecting classes and majorsbased on peers’ decisions,few seemworried that these choices could havenegative effects on their future careerchoices.“Sure,switching from English toarchitecture,my GPA is going to takea hit,but I don’t think it’s going to betoo bad,”Henesy said.In fact,Henesy said he actuallybelieves his career options haveexpanded now that he is gaining anengineering background in additionto all the English classes he took hissophomore year.He also notes thatmany of the Stanford graduates heknows are now working in fieldscompletely unrelated to their major.“While I don’t think I want to bean architect,I feel like the purpose of an undergraduate major is just toexplore a subject that you’re passion-ate about,”he said.“At Stanford,I’monly going to be here once,so I mightas well take advantage of somethingthat I might not be able to pursueagain.”On the other hand,althoughRhoades is interested in art history,she thinks she will forgo majoring inart history for a double major ininternational relations and communi-cation in preparation for a career ineither journalism or diplomacy.“I think,career-wise,I’d rather gointo one of those two fields than any-thing to do with art,”she said.Selznick is quick to point out thatmajors at Stanford do not pigeon-hole students into future careers.“One mistake is that studentsthink the major has to be a prerequi-site for their career,”she said.Selznick said that through hermany years advising at Stanford,there have been countless examplesof students who are now doing some-thing completely unrelated to whatthey studied here on the Farm.Forexample,one of her advisees was aJapanese major but ended up inhealthcare consulting and ultimatelyended up at medical school,eventhough she had not been pre-med atStanford.That being said,Selznick encour-aged the students to pursue the fieldsthey are most passionate about.“We encourage students to majorin something they’re interested inand are good at,”Selznick said.“Because two years later,your majoris going to matter a lot less than whatyou learned and what you did.”Although the results of his studysuggest that students do not alwayschoose the major that is best fortheir skill set,Pellizzari agrees thatinterest in a subject is the mostimportant prerequisite for a major.“Just go for the subject you likebetter,”he said.“You will generallyhave a strong comparative advan-tage there,at least in terms of moti-vation.”Jemma Wolfe ‘12 has certainlyfound this to be true during her firstyear here.“I think I do better in the classesI enjoy the most because I put themost effort into them,”sheexplained.
Contact Caroline Stokes at cstokes@ stanford.edu.
MAJORS
Continued from front page
resources to narrow down theoptions available to students inter-ested in conducting projects over-seas.The site will also help with plan-ning for prospective students whoalready have an interest in goingabroad.“We think the funding section isprobably going to be the most popu-lar with students,”Kristian said,not-ing that this segment also presentedthe biggest challenge in the develop-ment process.A substantial amount of workwas dedicated to consolidating sucha broad set of resources.In fact,stu-dent research assistants were hiredto search for these grant-fundingopportunities that were previouslyscattered among 300 different sites.“[But] we know that what is onthe site now is just the tip of the ice-berg,so we strongly encourage peo-ple to add material,”Kristian said.“We’re actually very interested inwhat the users want because thatwill help guide where we’re going inthe future.”She believes that student feed-back is essential to improving theWeb site on various levels—notingthat while the University has ideasabout what drives student interest,itis still keeping a keen eye on whichaspects of the site attract the mostactivity.That said,future plans arealready underway even this early inthe Web site’s lifespan.By next fall,when the University believes stu-dent activity on the site will reallybegin to pick up,Stanford hopes thatthe site will also contain a calendarof events with an internationaltheme,academic resources and RSSfeeds that will provide contact infor-mation for inter-student networking.
Contact Cassandra Feliciano at ccfeli-ci@stanford.edu.
GLOBAL
Continued from front page
How much would you care if the weeknight closing time for GreenLibrary went back to midnight?
61 votestakenfrom stanforddaily.com at 9:36 p.m.05/20/09
36%20%
D A BC
25%20%
Today’s Question:
When selecting your major, do you letother students influence your decision?
a)
Yes, I take my peers’ opinions very seriously.
b)
No, I decide to study what I‘mpassionate about all on my own.
c)
Somewhere in between.
d)
We have to choose majors?
vote today at stanforddaily.com!
A)
A lot. I find the extra time really helpful.
B)
A bit. It can sometimes be useful.
C)
Not at all. I’m never there that late.
D)
I wouldn’t care at all. I never go to Greenanyway.
DAILY POLL
Please see
VISUAL
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of 00
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